


M Stands For Mum

by TheBritishGovernment



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Cohabitation, Friends to Lovers, M/M, One Shot, Q is M's Son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 10:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4175805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBritishGovernment/pseuds/TheBritishGovernment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Bond and Q's lives together as they live together, become best friends, and fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	M Stands For Mum

**November 17th, 2012**

Bond didn’t go to the funeral. He didn’t particularly see a purpose to it. He knew what would happen. Some people would cry and leave flowers and there would be a group that stood in the back not saying a word. He knew she would have hated it. Granted she wouldn’t like what he was doing now very much either.

He slid open the window in front of him and climbed through, finding himself deposited in the kitchen of her house, the same way he had been when he came back from the dead. Only problem was that this time she wouldn’t walk in while he was drinking and tell him off. No one would be there at all, but that was what he wanted, he wanted to drink in the peace.

“What the hell are you doing?” a voice asked. Bond froze. He knew that voice. Why was that voice here?

“Q?” he asked, jaw almost slack as he stared at the younger man. Q was standing in the archway between the kitchen and living room, arms crossed in a whit button down and black tie loose around his neck with a black leather shoulder holster holding a gun.

“Sim, what’s going on?” a woman’s voice asked. Two more people came into the room to stand behind Q. All three of them had the same jet-black hair and the newcomers were wearing matching scowls, while Q just arched his eyebrow at the agent. The three were all obviously related, though the other two were notably older than Q. The woman was wearing a black dress and the other man was wearing almost the same thing as Q minus the shoulder holster.

“Who’s this?” the other man asked. He seemed to be sizing up Bond, deciding whether or not he was going to be able to fight Bond off. Odd considering Q was the one with the gun, so Bond assumed oldest, though obviously without any experience in actual hand-to-hand combat.

“A Double-O who lacks a sense of personal boundaries,” Q grumbled. He turned on his heal in the same manner he had in the museum and went back to the other room. “If you’re going to be here you might as well help,” he called from the other room.

The other man shrugged and the woman arched her eyebrow, but the pair turned to follow Q into the other room. Bond paused for a moment where he stood. He still had time to run and could just forget about Q being in M’s house – it wasn’t likely that the man would bring it up. That was the obvious choice, but a part of Bond, one that made him so good at his job, was extremely curious as to why Q and family were in the dead head of MI6’s home, so he followed.

The living room had boxes stacked in corners, most of them had “Auction” written on them, but some of them had “Sim,” “Rachel,” or “Matt” scribbled on the side. There were more boxes in the hall from what Bond could see and there were a few sitting open with the others standing over them. M’s bottle of scotch was open on the table surrounded by three half filled glasses.

“Matt, Mum left you all the books, you need to go through them,” the woman, who Bond assumed was Rachel, said.

“I’ll get to it,” Matt responded with a shrug as he wrapped up another piece of crystal and placed it in an Auction box.

“How about you get to it now,” Rachel countered sharply.

“Lay off. He said he’ll get to it, he’ll get to,” Q said, rolling his eyes before turning to Bond. “There’s a van outside, load those boxes in and try to be careful. I know it’s not your specialty, but do at least try.”

Bond stared at him blankly for a moment. “I think I’ll just take a drink instead, thanks though.”

Matt smirked and poured a glass of the scotch for the agent. “I like him.” He extended the glass to Bond. “What’s your name?”

“Bond, James Bond.”

“Matt Mansfield.” He extended his hand and shook Bond’s hand. “That’s Rachel and you know Q.”

“Or Sim,” Bond said with a faint smirk and a look at Q who glared at him.

“Sim to them, Q to you,” Q said with a tight smile.

“Play nice, Sim,” Matt said shaking his head. He checked his watch and let out a low whistle. “I must be off. Courtney will have my head if I leave her alone with the kids for much longer,” Matt said as he started rolling down his sleeves.

“What time is it?” Rachel asked.

“Ten,” he said as he turned around to find his jacket.

“I’ve got to go too,” Rachel said, grabbing her coat.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Matt said. He smiled at turned to Bond. “It was nice to meet you.”

“We’ll finish up the downstairs tomorrow,” Rachel said. “Nice to meet you Mr. Bond.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Bond responded with a nod. The front door opened and shut, leaving Q and Bond alone in the room.

“You’re not leaving?” Bond asked.

“No, I have to take care of some of the…modifications I made to the house,” Q said. He drained the last of his drink before he set the glass down and moved to climb the stairs.

Bond hadn’t planned on there being anyone in M’s house while he got pissed, but now faced with the opportunity to have someone know if he passed out, he really wanted to be around the younger man.

Q didn’t seem to notice, or maybe didn’t care that Bond was following him as he went into a spare bedroom and pulled a laptop out of a bag. In the corner of the room there was a server plugged into a number of wires that were sprouting from the wall next to it. Q sat down at the desk and started typing on the laptop; Bond sat on the floor against the wall and poured himself another drink.

For twenty minutes the sound of typing and the occasional clink of glass as Bond poured another drink was the only sound to be heard in all the house. Eventually Q stood and grabbed another case, opening it on the ground to reveal a set of power tools. “What are you doing?” Bond asked, because he really was quite a curious man.

Q jumped slightly, like he had forgotten the agent was there before turning around to look at said agent. “I have to remove certain wiring from the doors and windows,” Q explained rather vaguely, though he seemed content not to expand. He carefully chose a few tools before going to the window and carefully removing the molding that surrounded the window. There was a bright rainbow of wires running around the whole frame that Q pulled out gently.

“Why is there wiring in her windows?” Bond asked, because, again, he wanted to know and it didn’t seem like Q was all that inclined to tell him.

“Because I programed a security system that would drop an inch think sheet of steal if someone that wasn’t in the database tried to enter,” Q explained as he put the molding back and took a nail gun to put the pieces of wood back in place. “It would also electrify the metal so that if anyone tried to get through or around it they would be knocked out…or die, depending on if they were in the database as a hostile.”

“All for you grandmother,” Bond laughed.

Q turned around sharply. “ _Grandmother?_ How young do you think I am?” Q asked. The look on his face made it clear that he thought that Bond had drank far too much already and was considering taking the bottle.

“Twenty-five, tops,” Bond said with a shrug. “Why? How old are you?” Bond was drunk, he knew that, but offending Q for an extended period of time seemed like a bad idea.

“33,” Q said flatly.

Bond just shrugged again and took another drink.

Q rolled his eyes and turned back to the window to continue nailing in the molding. “On top of that my mother was the director of MI6, of course she had security protocols.” Q finished nailing everything back in place it was impossible to tell that he had even done anything to the window.

He stood up and gathered his tool and moved to the door. He took off the door handle and pulled a long wire out of the door and wrapped it around a coil.

Q left the room, leaving the drunken man behind.

Bond grumbled as he stood up to follow Q. There wasn’t a distinct reason he felt the need to be around Q, maybe his drunken mind thought that he could get a quick lay if he tried hard enough.

That defiantly wasn’t going to happen, though. When Bond turned the corner to follow Q he tripped over the man, landing an accidental kick to Q’s side that would probably bruise and throwing Bond over him.

“What the fuck, Bond?” Q asked as he rubbed his side.

Bond rolled onto his back and groaned. “I tripped, sorry.”

Q glared at Bond. “Go sit somewhere and stay out of my way, you drunken bastard.”

Bond stared at Q for a moment before struggling to his feet and making his way back downstairs. He sat down on the couch with a flop and took a drink from the bottle. It wasn’t as if Q were the first person to call him a drunken bastard, he had been called a number of very colorful variations of the phrase, but Q looked like he really meant it, and Bond could feel himself grasping for anything that resembled M’s authority (Mallory certainly didn’t have it) and Q seemed to fit what he wanted, but Q didn’t want him.

For a few minutes Bond let himself sulk before he cursed at himself for being stupid and taking a long drink from the bottle without tasting it.

**November 18th, 2012**

Bond woke the next morning with a start to a loud beeping noise coming from his pocket. He fumbled with the damnable phone that was making the damnable noise and finally quieted the damnable thing without throwing it across the room, which he had been known to do.

On the screen there was a message to go with the blasted alarm. /Wake up, take a shower, and get dressed. You have a flight to catch. –Q/

“Bastard,” Bond grumbled as he dialed the number for Q-Branch.

“What do you need, 007,” a woman’s voice answered.

“I need to talk to Q,” Bond said as he stretched his stiff muscles.

“He’s busy at the moment, I can help you,” the voice said.

“Who is it?” Q’s voice asked from the background.

The mic was muffled with her hand.

A second later Q was on the phone. “007?”

“What did you do to my phone?”

“I set an alarm, it’s not going to explode.” Q sounded exasperated with the agent. He probably was.

“Do you often put your hands in your agents trouser pockets?” Bond asked lightly, letting a smirk slip into his voice.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I remotely accessed it and set the alarm.” There was a shuffling in the background and then typing started up.

“You can do that?” Bond asked before he could stop himself.

“It’s my job to do that,” Q sighed. “Was there anything else?”

Bond thought for a moment for anything else that would annoy the new Quartermaster. “No,” he finally conceded.

Q’s voice dropped to a whisper. “There are towels in the bathroom, I assume your bag was in the car that you took to her house. Try not to make too much of a mess, my siblings will be over there again tonight,” Q said in the same exasperated posh voice that he used when he first met Bond.

“Fantastic,” Bond grumbled. “Thank you, Q.”

“Goodbye, agent.”

**December 10th, 2012**

Bond got back from Afghanistan three weeks later.

It had been late at night, but M had told him to come debrief anyway, he had work to do and was going to be there anyway. Then Medical had gotten a hold of him and they were always tempted to hold him hostage for a few days after a mission. When he finally escaped from Medical he went to Q-Branch to take the laptop that he had acquired, and found Q standing at the command center.

“It’s nearly two in the morning, Q,” Bond said as he walked into the room. There were a few of the minions still at work, but they all looked like they were from the night shift, since they didn’t look dead on their feet like Q.

“Yes, 007, it is. Any other enlightening information for us?” Q snapped without looking up at Bond. “No? Well then, did you at least bring your equipment back?”

“You sent me with a gun and a bomb,” Bond said. “Bombs aren’t really supposed to come back.”

“No, but your guns are,” Q countered. He finally looked up at the agent. “We don’t keep spare custom guns, in case you were wondering.”

“And why not?” Bond asked as if he were offended.

“Because you are the only agent who makes a point to lose and/or break his gun over the course of the mission,” Q countered flatly.

Bond smirked at Q again, who rolled his eyes. “I resent that statement,” Bond said stoically.

“You resent everything,” Q replied with an unimpressed look on his face.

“Not true,” Bond said in mock offense. He placed the laptop on the table. “But I do resent that you’re still at work at two in the morning.”

“And why does it bother you?” Q asked as he slid the computer in front of him and started inspecting it from the outside.

“What if I need you and you hadn’t slept,” Bond said calmly. “You’d be pretty useless to me then.”

“Goodnight, Q.” The agent turned around and went to walk out the door before Q’s brain caught up to what was going on.

“You can’t go back to the house. Everything’s been moved out,” he said before Bond could move too far away from the desk.

Bond stopped and turned around to look at Q.

“For sale, they wanted everything moved out,” Q added in explanation.

“None of you are taking it, seems like a shame,” Bond said nonchalantly.

Q huffed a little at that. “We all have very nice flats.”

Bond looked at him disbelievingly. “Something better than M’s?”

“I have a very nice flat. You’ve been,” Q said crisply.

Bond arched an eyebrow. “Unless I’m forgetting something, no I haven’t.”

“You broke in.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You didn’t see me, obviously, but I was in the flat at the time.”

“M’s old flat.”

“Well perceived, 007.” Q stared at Bond for a moment. He was obviously considering something that Bond wasn’t really sure he wanted to know that he was considering.

“What?”

“You haven’t found a flat yet, have you?” Q asked with the same considering face.

“Been a little busy,” Bond responded a little more sharply than necessary, though Q didn’t seem to care.

“Do you have a car?” Q asked.

“I think MI6 can spare one, why?” Bond asked suspiciously.

“I missed my train and I don’t want to walk. You can stay in the spare room if you drive me home,” Q said seriously.

Bond watched the other man curiously. “Alright, but we leave now.”

Q rolled his eyes at Bond’s attempt to order him and looked at one of his minions. “Colby,” Q said. A man, little younger than Q, perked up and looked at his boss. “Make sure that this is safe to inspect when I get in in the morning.”

The young man nodded and stood to go where Q was. The young Quartermaster started logging out of his account and surrendered the computer to Colby. He went into his office, leaving Bond alone with the minions who ignored him.

If Bond were another man he might have felt awkward standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets while everyone around him was working silently.

Q came back out of the office with his oversized jacket and a laptop case. He nodded to Colby and led the way out of the branch to the carpark. He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked a box of keys. He grabbed one and handed them to Bond. “Same car that you checked out last.” Bond nodded and went to the designated parking spot for the black Jaguar.

Q gave the directions just as if he were directing Bond on a mission, even if Bond did remember where the flat was. Bond followed Q into the tall building and into the elevator that took them both to the penthouse where Q lived.

The room was decorated completely different from the last time Bond had been. The walls were all painted warm colors and the furniture was all mismatched and overstuffed. There were papers covering the tables, chairs, and taped to the walls that weren’t covered in bookshelves that were overflowing onto the ground in stacks. Something moved suddenly in front of Bond and grabbed onto his leg. He hissed in pain as claws dug into his skin. Attached to him was a tabby cat with green eyes looking up at him.

“Lovelace, food,” Q said in a bored tone as he moved out of the elevator. The cat released Bond at the name and followed Q who dropped his laptop case on the floor and went into another room.

Bond followed curiously into the other room, which turned out to be the kitchen. Q opened a bag of cat treats and gave one to the infernal beast that had just clawed at Bond’s leg.

Q opened the large fridge and started digging through it until he noticed Bond standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Down the hall, fourth door on the right,” Q said, pointing down the hall past Bond.

“Thanks,” Bond said with a nod before turning around and going to the spare room. Down the hall and inside the fourth door on the right was a guest bedroom with books stacked in a corner next to a desk and a bed. Bond flopped down on the bed, tossed his backpack into the corner, and fell asleep.

**December 11th, 2012**

Bond woke up the next morning to the sound of Q moving around outside the spare room he was in. “You’re insane if you think I’m agreeing to that,” Q mumbled as he walked by.

His curiosity peaked; Bond rolled out of bed silently and followed the sound of Q’s fading voice to the hall.

“No way,” Q hissed into the phone. Bond stopped short from turning the corner into the living room where Q was standing in a pair of flannel pajamas with an oversized MI6 t-shirt that Bond recognized as the training shirts that they were provided.

“That’s not really my problem,” Q snapped.

There was a pause and the cat came to brush up against Bond’s legs.

“You called me at five in the morning!” Q bit at whoever was on the other end of the line. “You do _not_ get to lecture me on manners.”

There was another pause and the sound of papers ruffling. “The answer is no. Goodbye, Mathew.” Q sighed loudly before a few more papers moved and Bond slipped back into the room and shut the door silently.

Bond listened for Q to shut the door before he let out the breath he had been holding. Bond glanced at the alarm clock and found that it was in fact 5 in the morning. He crawled back into bed and fell back asleep without much thought to Q’s odd conversation and didn’t wake back up until almost noon.

Q came home that night to find Bond sitting on his couch with the cat purring in his lap while Bond pet her with one hand and had one of Q’s books propped open in the other.

“What are you doing?” Q asked from where he had stopped in the doorway.

Bond put his thumb in the book to hold his place as he placed it on the arm of the couch where he was sitting and looked up at Q. “I didn’t think you’d mind, they’re everywhere,” Bond said calmly.

“As long as you don’t break it I don’t care about the book. I was asking why you’re still here.” Q slowly put his bag down on the floor, but kept eye contact with Bond like he were a skittish animal.

“Did you want me to leave? Because you really should have made that clear after you told me I could stay in your flat,” Bond said flatly. He was prepared to leave if Q asked him to. They would forget about him staying in Q’s flat and spending all day hanging out with his cat and reading his book. Though he was tempted to break back in every once in a while to borrow a book or two.

“Do you want to stay?” Q asked slowly.

Bond considered it for a moment. “I wouldn’t be completely against it,” he said just as slowly as Q had.

“Then you can stay. The room you’re in now will have to do…the other one I set up as a lab and it could be lethal to move everything to a different room,” Q said smoothly. He stood up and went to the kitchen. “I’m ordering curry, what do you want?” Q called from the other room.

“Chicken, extra spicy,” Bond called.

Q pulled out his personal mobile and called the take out restaurant down the street. He ordered Bond’s extra spicy chicken curry, and his normally spiced curry.

Q went back into the living room and sat in a chair across from Bond. He started going through the papers on the table and stacking them in piles. Bond looked up over the edge of his book, but didn’t say a word as he continued to pet the cat that was asleep in his lap. Q left the room for a moment and came back with his arms full of three ring binders and a three-hole punch. He started punching holes and putting the papers in binders.

“You don’t have to clean up on my account,” Bond said eventually. Q froze and stared at Bond.

“I don’t _have_ to, but if you plan on staying longer than a week it would be the proper thing to do,” Q countered. He pulled a Sharpie out of his pocket and started writing an equation on the side of the binder.

“Is that your way of asking me when I plan on leaving?”

“No. I already covered that. You really are old,” Q said, a small smile pulling at his lips.

“At least I don’t have spots,” Bond countered.

“I’d rather have spots than Alzheimer’s,” Q quipped. He gathered the binders into his arms and started stacking them in a corner next to the overflowing bookcase.

Bond shook his head and smirked at the man while his back was turned. “So what are you asking?”

“I’m not asking anything.” Q turned back around and looked at Bond. “You already said that you are staying, I assume for an extended period of time, which means that this is also becoming your flat, which means; yes, I need to clean up my papers. Mostly so you don’t mess them up.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bond quipped.

Q rolled his eyes and went to grab his laptop. He settled back down in the chair and started to go through the schematics of a new lock pick that would break electric and old-fashioned tumbler locks. Bond went back to his book and Q got lost in his own work. Before either of them knew it the doorbell rang and the doorman announced that the curry was there. Q got up and took the elevator down to get the curry. When he got back Bond was in the kitchen and had poured them each a glass of wine.

“No one allowed in the elevator?” Bond asked as Q handed him the Styrofoam box and a fork.

“There’s no way to keep them out of the flat if they take the elevator, so no.” Q sat down at the table across from Bond and took the offered glass. They ate in silence for the most part, except for when Bond took the first bite of his curry and cursed. Apparently he wasn’t quite prepared for his spicy curry to be that spicy. By the time that he finished the bowl of curry he was sweating, coughing, and Q was giggling.

Bond finally surrendered and went to get a cup of milk and Q told him that there was ice cream in the freezer. He didn’t even bother to serve himself the ice cream, just grabbed a spoon and the carton and sat back down at the table eating straight from the carton.

“You could have warned me,” Bond commented as Q continued to smirk.

“I could have, but where would the fun be in that?” Q asked. Bond glared at Q half-heartedly.

Q pulled out his phone as it started to go off with a generic ringtone. He checked the caller ID and groaned, silencing the cell phone.

Bond arched his eyebrow, but didn’t ask.

“It’s the third time my brother has called me today,” Q explained.

“Why?”

“He wanted me to do something obnoxious,” Q grumbled.

“Like what?”

“I have been asked to invite you to Christmas dinner,” Q said reluctantly.

“Are you asking me to go with you to Christmas dinner?” Bond asked with a smirk.

“No,” Q said flatly, making Bond’s smirk fade and be replaced with a curious look. “My brother has requested your presence. Said he wants someone who actually speaks English to be there,” Q said tightly.

“And he thinks I’d be better company than anyone else in your family?”

“My sister and his wife tend to get into arguments whenever they’re together.”

Bond nodded thoughtfully. “In-laws.”

Q sighed and shook his head. “His wife is the Director of MI5 and my sister is the Minister of Defense. You can see where the problems arise.”

At this Bond raised an eyebrow.

“It’s hardly our fault we have a type,” Q said just a little defensively.

Bond started smirking again. “Type?”

“We tend to pair off with one normal person and one person not so normal.”

“Then shouldn’t your sister’s husband be able to entertain him.”

“Divorced.”

“What does he want with me?”

“Entertainment.”

Bond arched his eyebrow again.

Q sighed dramatically. “We’re all drastically different from my brother. My sister, my sister in law, and I get into arguments over whether or not to interfere in Yemen and my brother gets into arguments over who is going to win that week’s football game. Not that it’s a bad thing, my sister and I have a hard time separating work from our personal lives and he doesn’t have the security clearance to know a lot of things about our work. It’s part of the reason my sister’s marriage failed and I don’t date. It’s too difficult.”

“What’s going on in Yemen?”

Q stared blankly at Bond.

“You’re not at liberty to discuss that?”

“No.”

“Am I going to Yemen soon?”

“Depends on how Christmas goes, to be honest.” Q stood up and threw away the containers and put the wine away. “There’s no reason for you to go. I was asked to invite you and I have done my job.” With that Q left the room.

Bond took a minute and put the ice cream back in the freezer and put the spoon in the sink with the wine glasses. He walked back into the living room and found Q back on his laptop. “Maybe I want to go,” Bond commented.

“Do as you please. God knows you will anyway,” Q mumbled.

**December 25th, 2012**

Two weeks later Q thought that he was in the clear when Bond was assigned a mission in Cuba. He was at his brother’s home sitting on his brother’s couch watching his nephews pick up their gift-wrapped blocks when here was a knock on the door. Everyone froze and the boys put their gifts slowly back down on the ground and everyone stared at the doors. Q slowly stood up and went to the door. He pulled out the gun that he had in his shoulder holster and aimed it. He looked through the peephole and let out a dramatic sigh.

Bond was standing in front of the door looking very patient, and as innocent as one could look when they had just finished a mission in Cuba that probably resulted in at least one death.

“False alarm. It’s Bond.” There was a collective sigh of relief from the living room. Q opened the door and glared at Bond. “What are you doing here?”

“I was under the impression I had been invited,” Bond replied. He held up bag that had a bottle of scotch sitting in it and smiled at Q.

“Let him in, Q,” Matt called from the other room.

Q’s two nephews rushed up behind him when their uncle said this. Before Q could even move out of the way to let Bond in there were two ten year old boys standing behind him giving Bond identical apprising looks. They looked like mini Q’s even if they were his sister’s kids. They had similar haircuts that let their curly black hair sit just like Q’s and they were even wearing jumpers.

Bond stepped forward and rather too close to Q’s ear he whispered, “I hope they aren’t your cloning experiment.”

Q laughed and rolled his eyes, moving out of Bond’s way so that he could enter the house properly. The twins, however, stood in his way.

“Are you Uncle Sim’s new boyfriend?” one of them asked.

Bond looked down at the children. He wasn’t really sure how to deal with them. He had never been good with kids and it had never been a problem, not really something heavily sought after in assassins. “Why would you think that? He didn’t even want to let me come into the house.”

“You’re late for Christmas. Of course he’s angry with you,” the other twin asked.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Q said, placing his hands on the back of the boys’ heads and pushing them gently towards the living room. Bond tried to walk forward, but Q grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear. “I thought you were in Cuba.”

Bond paused and grinned at Q before leaning in close to his ear. “You’re not doing a very good job of convincing them we’re not dating.” He leaned back from Q and gave him another smile before going to sit in Q’s spot. Q glared at him and settled on the floor since the couch was full and there weren’t any more chairs.

The twins sat back down in front of the tree and grabbed the identical blocks. When the boys got them unwrapped, (Q seemed to have made opening the present a puzzle for them) it revealed a Rubik’s cube.

“I can solve one of these in under five minutes,” one of the boys said to Q with a flat look.

“Then do it,” Q said, nodding to them.

They both gave Q a suspicious look before turning back to the cubes. As soon as the first piece was rotated another moved without being touched. Both boys jumped back from the cubes and stared at the plastic in their hands.

“It fights back?” one of them asked slowly.

Q just smirked at them in reply. Bond looked at Q and had to suppress his own smirk. The man had created his nephews presents from something he said as a passing comment in the middle of a mission. Not only that, but he developed and created the idea in a month while still working as Quartermaster. His quartermaster was a genius and Bond was just a bit prod.

Q looked at Bond who had been staring and arched an eyebrow. Bond just nodded and turned to start a conversation with Matt.

**March 9th, 2013**

Bond finished his last rep of pushups and stood up. He rolled his shoulders for a moment before leaving his room to head to the kitchen. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and was covered in sweat, but Q had gone out for the night so no one was around to complain about it.

The past few months of living with Q had been uneventful to say the least. Q was a quiet flatmate who always did his share of the chores but always made Bond do his whenever he was back from missions. Things were comfortable and their working relationship had only gotten better since moving in together, now working almost seamlessly.

Bond went to the fridge and found a bottle of water before heading back to his room. Halfway to the down the hall, passing the living room, the elevator dinged. Bond stopped and turned curiously to see why Q was getting back so early. The answer was obvious when Q and a man stumbled out of the elevator attached at the lips.

“Ignore the mess,” Q said as he turned around to pull the man towards his room.

The other man stopped short, making Q also stop. Q looked back at the man and the man stared at Bond.

“There is a handsome, half naked man covered in sweat in the middle of your flat,” the man said as his eyes ran over Bond’s body repeatedly.

“Yes, he’s also straight,” Q said as he pulled the man along to his room.

“Bi,” Bond corrected as Q passed.

“Bye,” Q answered as he walked into his room followed by the other man.

**March 10th, 2013**

The next morning Bond was sitting on the couch with Lovelace curled on his lap as he read Slaughterhouse-Five when the man Q had brought home found his way out of Q’s room and into the living room carrying his jacket and shoes. He froze wide-eyed when he saw Bond who just stared back.

“Tell Luke…” the man started before Bond cut him off.

“Just go, doubtful he wanted you here anyway,” Bond said plainly. He instinctively didn’t like the man and he was never one to question his instincts.

The man nodded and pressed the down button on the elevator. He wrestled with his shoes and almost fell over before the elevator opened and he hurried to get inside the small room and away from Bond.

Q came out of his room not a minute after the elevator doors shut. He walked into the kitchen after giving Bond an exasperated look.

Bond smirked, marked his page, and followed Q into the kitchen, forcing the cat off his lap with a growl. Q was moving around in the kitchen pulling a pan off of the pot rack above the island. “I thought he’d never wake up,” Q grumbled half to himself and half to Bond.

Bond leaned against the island and watched Q make his usual breakfast for his days off, even if it was almost ten. “You’ve been awake?”

“For three /hours/.” He pulled an armful of ingredients out of the fridge and kicked the door closed.

“Was wondering what had taken you so long to get up,” Bond said with a small smirk. “I would have taken care of it for you if you didn’t want to tell him to leave.”

Q snorted, sounding amused at the idea. “And what would you have done?” He started mixing the egg yokes and poured them into the pan.

“Told him to get out of my bed.”

“He did see you last night.” Q filled half his omelets with chopped vegetables.

“Wouldn’t stop it from being my bed.”

“That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Because he would be wiling to argue that with me standing over him and telling him to get out of my bed,” Bond said sarcastically.

Q smiled for a second before turning back to his breakfast. “Plans for today?”

“You mean other than sitting on your couch and reading your books? No.”

“Good, I need a favor.”

“What is it?”

“A friend of mine’s art is being showcased at a gala tonight and I need to get rid of the last of the tickets that she gave me,” Q explained.

“How many tickets do you need to get rid of?”

“Just two more. Thought you could go find yourself a date.”

“In one night?”

“Yes, and wear a tux.”

Bond stared at Q blankly for a second. “Only two more? How many tickets did she give you?”

“Five. I already gave two of them to R, so the Tanners will be there, and I need one.” Q shrugged and pulled his breakfast out of the pan and onto a plate.

“Does she count on one of your friends being single?” Bond asked.

“She counts on me being single,”

“And why’s that?”

Q turned and started at Bond. His eyes were blank and so was his face. There wasn’t any expression for Bond to try and read and it almost startled Bond just how empty Q looked in that moment.

“Alright, I’ll find someone.”

That night, just after the sun set Eve Moneypenny emerged from Q’s elevator in a sparkling midnight blue floor length evening gown. She expected someone to comment on how gorgeous she looked, because she did look drop dead gorgeous, but there was no one in the living room. The only sound in the flat was two voices bickering in the hallway.

“It’s fine,” Bond’s voice said angrily.

“No, it’s not,” Q countered sharply.

Eve followed the sound of their voices and found Bond and Q glaring at each other in a narrow hallway. Both of them were dressed in impeccable tuxedos. Bond’s was midnight blue while Q’s was pure black.

“It’s fine, Q,” Bond argued.

“Do you own a black tux?” Q asked with a glare.

“Of course.”

“Then go put it on.”

“No.”

“This isn’t a casino, Bond. This is a very nice gala and you will dress accordingly,” Q said firmly.

Bond growled and threw his hands up in frustration, before turning and going through the door behind him.

Q huffed and turned to Moneypenny with a smile. “You look lovely, Miss Moneypenny.”

“As do you. Who would have thought that you could actually get those curls under control?” She smiled at him and moved back into the living room.

He followed. “It’s not an easy task,” Q mumbled.

“Next time you need someone to take up a ticket to your friend’s gala, ask me sooner. I had to cancel a date.”

“You didn’t have to cancel your date,” Q said, looking at her like she was crazy.

“Yes, I did. This might be the only time I get to go to an event of this caliber off duty.”

“Happy, Q?” Bond asked angrily. He stomped into the room like an oversized toddler.

“More so. Now stop acting like a petulant child and thank Miss Moneypenny for being a better friend than you deserve,” Q said brightly.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Moneypenny. You look stunning,” Bond said smoothly. He approached Moneypenny and Q with a grace that fit him. He offered his arm to Eve and smiled. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” she said, linking her arm with his. The three of them got into the elevator and road down to ground level where Q had called for a limousine. A chauffeur was standing next to the door and tipped his hat.

“Mr. Smith,” he said, opening the door for Q and the others to get in.

“Thank you,” Q said as he slid in. Moneypenny and Bond followed. Twenty minutes later they pulled up in front of the National Gallery and stopped. Someone opened the door and Q stepped out first, followed by Moneypenny and Bond. Camera’s were flashing, no one taking a chance that they might be important. Moneypenny smiled and Q led them into the building where it was significantly quieter.

A few people looked at them as they entered, but most of them turned back to their conversations immediately. One woman didn’t and excused herself from the conversation she was in to go to Q.

“I’m so glad you could make it, Sim,” she said with a huge smile. They hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry about your mother and that I couldn’t come to the funeral.”

“It’s okay. They lied about her the whole time anyway,” Q said with a smile. She arched her eyebrow at Q with a sly smile. “They said she was kind and patient. The only time I’d ever seen her kind and patient was when she was being sarcastic.”

The woman laughed and turned to Bond and Moneypenny. “And who are these lovely people?”

“Bond, James Bond,” Bond said with a smile. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles.

Q rolled his eyes dramatically, the woman giving a suppressed laugh. She turned to face Moneypenny. “And you are?”

“Eve Moneypenny,” she said with a smile.

“Amanda Lansing. It’s nice to meet you both,” she said politely. She turned back to Q. “I only count three tickets being used.”

“They’ll be here,” Q assured.

“And speak of the devil,” Bond said nodding to an approaching pair. Tanner was in a sharp tux with a black tie instead of a bow tie. R was wearing an emerald green silk dress that stopped at her ankles and hung off her perfectly.

“Please, if anyone here is the devil, it’s you,” Tanner countered.

“I resent that,” Bond said in mock offense.

“No you don’t,” the whole group, minus Amanda, said flatly.

Bond smirked and Q rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time.

After the gala everyone went to their respective homes. Q went straight to his bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Bond went to his room and methodically changed out of his tux.

He found it strange how at ease he had felt that night. He had known he would be going into an environment that would remind him distinctly of working in the field and had prepared himself to react in a similar way, but next to Q he had felt calm and he almost relaxed enough to stop checking the exits and entrances.

After he changed into a pair of sweatpants and a stretched out tee shirt he went to the kitchen to find himself a drink. The cat came to join him, sitting on the counter next to the bottle.

He was still standing in the kitchen two hours later when Q walked in, the bottle sitting mostly untouched next to him while he played with his phone. "What are you doing?" Q asked. He squinted his eyes against the light and stepped towards Bond.

"Same thing I do every night," Bond answered.

"Good to know that this is what you do when I'm sleeping or at work."

"Or picking up strange men at the bar."

Q smiled slightly at Bond. He grabbed a glass from a cupboard and poured himself a long drink of the scotch.

"What about you?" Bond asked as he watched Q drink for the first time. Usually Q stayed away from alcohol, or at least passed whenever Bond offered him a drink.

"Same thing as you. We all have our demons," he added when Bond arched an eyebrow at him.

Bond nodded solemnly. He wasn't about to ask Q about his, just like Q wasn’t about to ask Bond. Everyone had their demons and they were better left alone.

"Well, if you need a drinking buddy..." Bond didn't finish the sentence or offer. There was no need. Q knew he'd stay with him if he thought that was what he wanted. But Q didn't want to ask and Bond wasn't about to spell it out.

"What I need is a sleeping buddy. Not a hangover buddy," Q mumbled more to himself than to Bond. Q took another long drink. "I have work in the morning."  
"I can help with that too," Bond said lightly.

Q looked at Bond flatly. "Not that kind of sleeping buddy."

"Not what I was suggesting."

Q considered Bond for a moment. "Why?"

A smile pulled at Bond's lips. "I get it. Too quiet in the room by yourself. You need the sound of someone breathing and their weight on the bed. It's why you picked up that guy last night."

"I might have just wanted sex."

"But you didn't. In the three months I’ve been living here you haven’t brought anyone but that one guy home so I don’t think it was about the sex." Bond and Q stared at each other for a long moment.

"You remind me of him in a lot of ways," Q said quietly. The way he said /him/ let Bond know that he was not talking about the man from the night before, but Q's demon.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Good." Q drained his glass. He stared at the bottle for a long time. Or what seemed like a long time when Bond's voice broke through.

"Are you going to let me help?"

"Are you going to keep your hands to yourself?"

"On my honor."

"You don't have any honor."

Bond let out a low laugh that made a small grin appear on Q's face for a fleeting second. "On Lovelace's honor."

"Demon cats don't have honor either," Q said plainly.

"On your honor?"

"Also lacking."

"I swear on your book collection I will keep my hands to myself."

"Now that I believe."

  
**March 11th, 2013**

Bond woke up the next morning to an alarm going off and a thin warm body pressed against his side. Bond went stiff. Q's alarm was going off, but Q wasn't waking up. "Q..." Bond said slowly.

"Kyle." Q grumbled the name as he burrowed deeper against Bond's chest. "Five more minutes."

"Not Kyle." Bond said calmly.

That woke Q up. He jumped out of bed and started cursing in a few different languages.

Bond got out of the bed and watched Q freak out on the other side of the bed. “Q, we can forget about this,” Bond said calmly.

Q stopped and stared at Bond. “Right. Let’s just forget about…”

‘The last 8 hours?” Bond offered helpfully.

“Yes, 8 hours.” Q nodded shapely once. “I will see you at the office.”

After Q left for work Bond sat down on his computer and started to work. He logged into the computer system using M’s login information. He found Q’s files fast enough even though everything was still locked. Why Q’s information was locked to his mother was a mystery in and of itself, but not one that Bond was focused on. He’d deal with that later.

It took a significant time for him to try and dig though everything about hacking that he knew and even then all of it was useless. Eventually he gave up, and logged out.

He didn’t give up, though. He signed in with Tanner’s information. (He had changed his password again and this time it was “StopIt,007!.”)

He was into Q’s files without trouble after that. He should have considered the fact that that meant that the files had been locked for M’s account instead of shutting down the account. He should have realized that someone had left open the account for a purpose and that purpose might be to catch what Bond was doing.

On Q’s page it read “Single,” which didn’t surprise Bond, he lived with the man after all. What did surprise him was the little parenthesis next to it that said “Widower.”

He scrolled down though the information until he found the name Kyle Lane. He clicked through to Kyle’s file and found that he had been killed in Hong Kong on his first solo field mission. It looked like he had hesitated to actually kill someone who had been shooting at him.

Bond logged out quickly and shut the computer. He decided that he didn’t need to know anything more about Kyle and Q.

At night when Q came home the elevator dinged as always and Bond tried to greet Q as he walked in, but was hit in the face with Q’s phone. “What the fuck?” Bond cursed at him.

“You’re lucky I don’t have any coffee with me!” Q shouted. He dropped his laptop bag on the ground and stomped towards the agent. “I could _kill_ you right now!”

“What are you talking about?” Bond asked. He stood up and backed away from Q who did look like he might try and kill him.

“You are a complete bastard. You know that don’t you? I should have known better than to trust a double-o though, shouldn’t I?” Q picked up a book and threw it at Bond. Bond ducked and continued to back away from him.

“What did I do?”

“You know exactly what you did! Did you honestly think you could look into Kyle’s files without me finding out?” Q continued to scream.

Clarity dawned on Bond’s face. He took a step forward and tried to grab Q’s shoulders. Q slipped out of his grip and hit him again.

“You couldn’t just mind your own business, could you?” Q asked harshly.

“Q…”

“Don’t even try to defend yourself! I’m not done yelling at you!” Q shouted. “It wasn’t any of your God be damned business! It was my thing! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to KNOW!”

Bond stood still and let Q yell at him.

“There was no _reason_ for you to know about Kyle!” Q stared at Bond for a long time breathing heavily.

“Are you done?” Bond asked.

“Done? Absolutely not. But for entertainment’s sake let’s hear your argument.” Q snapped bitterly.

“I’m sorry…”

“Are you? Are you _really_?” Q asked incisively.

“I didn’t know that was what I was going to find,” Bond said calmly.

“What gave you the right to look at all?!”

“Nothing!” Bond snapped back. “Nothing gave me the right, besides the fact that you woke up wrapped around me calling me Kyle!”

“That doesn’t give you the right…”

Bond cut him off. “What did you think was going to happen?! You were in bed with a spy!”

“I thought I was in bed with a _friend_!” Q screamed.

“Q, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I broke into the MI6 servers. I’m sorry about Kyle…”

Q exploded into another fit of rage. “How dare you! I don’t want your sympathy!”

“Then what do you want!?”

Q took a deep, tense breath. “If I had hacked into Vesper’s files you’d be pissed.”

“Sounds like you already did,” Bond said tersely.

Q rolled his eyes. “I have more resect for you than that. All I know about Vesper Lynd is that she’s dead and my predecessor said never to bring her up in front of you.”

“You’re not going to guilt me into feeling bad.”

Q stared at Bond for a moment before he started nodding. “You’re right. It’s like talking to a wall.” He walked to his room, took is grab bag and pressed for the elevator. “I’ll see you at work. I’m sure you can invade my privacy and betray my trust by then.”

The elevator came and Q left. Twenty minutes latter Bond muttered a curse and left the flat.

Neither Q or Bond went back to the flat for three weeks.

April 3rd, 2013

There was a knock on Q’s office. He looked up to see Bond poking his head into the room. Q felt that he should yell at Bond and throw his empty tea mug, but he couldn’t find the energy to.

He had been sleeping in the office for the past three weeks and that had resulted in him not sleeping for most of it. It was hard to focus on sleeping when his computers and projects sitting on his desk seeming to taunt him from his desk.

“What do you want?” Q asked harshly.

“I want you to go home. If you want I’ll move out, but you not going back to _your_ house is stupid.” Bond spoke swiftly and in one breath. He nodded to Q and turned to leave the room.

“Sit down,” Q said with a sigh.

Bond turned around and tried to hide his surprise. He did as Q told him and sat down in one of the armchair in front of his desk.

“I deserve…” Bond started but Q cut him off.

“Execution.”

Bond looked down at the ground.

“You betrayed my trust by looking into who Kyle was.”

“I know.”

“Are you even the slightest bit remorseful?”

“I’m sorry for what it’s done to you. I’m not sorry for obtaining the information.”

Q rubbed his temples and sighed. “Of course not.”

“I’ll tell you about Vesper if it helps.”

This caused Q to pause. “Volunteering information isn’t the same as taking it from someone,” Q countered.

“No, but it’s all I’ve got to offer.” Bond gave Q a solemn stare.

Q sat, considering what Bond was offering. “No. It’s wouldn’t help. I want you to tell me if and when you want to. Not a second before.”

Bond gave Q a confused look that made one corner of Q’s mouth curl upwards.

“Let’s go home,” Q said softly. He shut down his computer station and grabbed his coat and grab bag from the corner of the room.

Bond stood up and straightened his coat. “Let’s.”

**September 23rd, 2013**

“You do know this is the sixth gun you’ve lost this year, right?” Q asked sharply.

“Yes,” Bond answered smoothly.

“ _Six_?” Q asked more harshly.

“Yes.”

Q sighed dramatically. He removed his glasses so that he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “Alright. Off you go,” Q said with a wave of his hand.

September 25th, 2013

Two days later when Q came home and found Bond in his usual spot with the cat he suppressed a mischievous smile. “My brother needs you to at his shop tomorrow.”

Bond looked up at the younger man standing in the doorway. “Why?”

Q shrugged. “Didn’t say.”

“I doubt the terrorists tell you why I go see them, but you don’t have a problem telling me anyway,” Bond said with an arched eyebrow. There was defiantly something off about Q that night, but he had been off since Bond got back from his mission anyway. Maybe he was getting sick. Bond made a mental note to pick up some tea to help with that from the store.

“My brother isn’t likely to be a terrorist and I don’t think I’m sending you to kill him,” Q countered.

“Fair enough. Pizza and movie?”

Q nodded once. “You order. I need to go change.”

September 26th, 2013

The next morning Bond woke up and headed to Matt’s bookshop. The sign on the door said that they were closed even if it was the middle of the workday. Bond walked in and the bell above the door rang. Matt looked up from a box that was open on the counter and smiled at Bond.

“Thanks for coming.”

“No problem.” Bond glanced around the room and noticed a number of boxes stacked around the room. There was an open door that led upstairs to where a café had been the last time Bond had been there. He couldn’t smell any coffee. When he thought about it he hadn’t seen the sign for the café when he had walked up to Matt’s shop.

“I was a little surprised when Q said that you wanted to help,” Matt commented. He moved around the counter and pointed at a stack of boxes. “Those are the non-fiction ones that will go on these shelves after you move the ones from over there upstairs.” Matt pointed at the sleeves that were already full of books.

“Q said I volunteered?” Bond asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Yes. I didn’t believe him at first. You don’t seem like the type, but you’re here so what do I know?” Matt shrugged as he moved back to the counter. He pulled out a book and started stuck a sticker on the back.

Bond shook his head and took of his suit jacket, hanging it over the back of one of the armchairs in the corner. There were empty boxes next to the shelves, some of them half full, but most of them were empty. Bond started putting books in the boxes and swore he would get revenge on Q for this.

Bond worked moving the books up the stairs until the sun set and he made his way back to his and Q’s flat. Q was sitting on the couch flipping though one of his binders of information for a paper that he was writing. He looked up when the elevator opened and grinned at Bond.

“How’s Matt?” Q asked lightly.

“He’s alright,” Bond said. He sat down in the chair across from Q. “You sent me to do manual labor.”

“Yes.”

“A particular reason you sent me to do manual labor?”

“ _Six_ guns, Bond.”

“You sent me to do manual labor,” Bond protested.

“What do you think I do to make you a brand new gun every time you come back from a mission!” Q argued.

Bond paused, then smiled charmingly. “Still. Manual labor?”

Q deflated slightly and gave Bond a smile. “Yes, manual labor.”  
November 29rd, 2013

Q walked into his flat with a sigh. He thought it would be good to be home. Relaxing, quiet, maybe even peaceful. All those dreams disappeared when he spotted Alec sitting on his couch

“Bond is in another country at the moment,” Q said as he walked into the room and dropped his bag.

“I know. I’m here to talk to you.” Alec gave Q a sharp smile that could have been interpreted as threatening, but Q spent too much time with agents and had grown up with M as his mother. In short, Q was a very hard man to intimidate.

Q rolled his eyes at the agent and ignored him as he walked into the kitchen. He pulled out his phone and called in for pizza. After he hung up the phone he turned to Alec who had followed him into the other room.

“You have half an hour until my food gets here, and you will be gone by then. Talk.”

“I’m here to tell you to be careful with James.”

Q snorted. “Careful with him?”

Alec’s eyes narrowed at Q and when he spoke it came out like a low growl. “You’ve read his file. You probably have it memorized. So, don’t pretend you don’t know about Vesper. He’s not…”

“I’m not Vesper Lynd,” Q cut Alec off. “Nor do I have the same relationship with Bond that she had.” Q glared back at the agent. He expected this from Eve, the other agents, but not from Bond’s best friend who had been to the flat and should have known that Bond and Q were not in any way involved.

“Everyone in MI6 knows, Q,” Alec said sharply. “The only person who doesn’t think you’re sleeping together is some guy in Analysis.”

“Well then I should talk to Mallory about giving him a raise because according to you he’s the only person who knows a damn thing!”

Alec was quiet for a moment. He watched Q continue to glare at him. The agent cocked his head to the side before smiling widely. “Sorry, Q. He’s my best friend, I have to cover my bases.”

Q deflated and nodded politely. “I understand.”

“But if anything does change and you do end up sleeping together, be careful with him. He’s not as much of an emotionless drone as he would like to think.” Alec smiled at Q again before turning and leaving the room and flat.

“Damn agents,” Q mumbled under his breath

**November 30th, 2013**

“When I die use your mother’s obituary of me,” Bond said suddenly.

Q’s head snapped up from the laptop in front of him. He stared wide-eyed at the agent in front of him even if Bond was staring at the cat and no where near Q. The younger man didn’t dare speak to the agent. There was a delicate balance between them and if he were to be honest, not that Q ever was, he understood.

He knew the lies and inaccuracies that littered the obituary his mother had written for the agent. (He had spent a good time laughing about them after it had been published. Q hadn’t known Bond yet and he didn’t really care about another dead agent, but his mum lying to the general public was always something he enjoyed). Still, he could guess why the agent wanted that to be his obituary again.

Q didn’t stay anything and turned back to his laptop. Bond knew he had heard him. He had no reason to respond.

**December 31st, 2013**

The Mi6 New Years party was something to be avoided. At all costs if you asked an agent. There were more productive things for them to be doing like being on mission, or finding someone to sleep with that not all of MI6 would glare at you for not calling them back. Double-Os especially avoided all office parties. Found it best to keep people unattached to them so that when they were inevitably found worthy of death, no one would morn them for too long.

That’s why Bond was sitting on the couch with a book and jazz music playing lowly in the background. He had gotten back from a mission three days before and had no inclination to do anything other than sit with his book and music to bring in the new year.

Until Q walked out of his bedroom, that is. He was wearing a black button down shirt that had the top button undone and a pair of trousers that had been tailored perfectly making his arse look down right delectable.

“I’ll see you later,” Q said offhandedly. He pressed the elevator button and waited patiently, hitting his pockets to make sure that he had everything.

Bond stood up, grabbed his suit jacket off of the back of the couch and his actual winter jacket from next to it. He pulled on his suit jacket and came to stand next to Q.

“What’re you doing? I was under the impression agents thought that parties with coworkers were the plague,” Q asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Well I can hardly let you go anywhere by yourself with your arse looking so damn nice,” Bond said with a smirk.

Q gave him a flat look despite the small flush that crept up his neck. “Hardy har har. You’re hilarious, Mr. Bond.”

Bond resisted grabbing Q’s arse just to make his point, but only just. “I was being serious.”

The elevator dinged and Q walked forward, shaking his head at Bond. The agent followed and tried to show his actual confusion as to why Q didn’t think that he was serious.

Once at the party they were pulled in separate ways and Bond ended up half listening to Moneypenny and Mallory argue over which brand of vodka is best and Q ended up with a group of his minions discussing something that would probably fly right over Bond’s head. That didn’t stop him from glancing over at Q every couple of seconds.

He noticed out of the corner of his eyes that there was someone staring none-to-subtly at Q’s arse. Bond felt a surge of protectiveness – or possessiveness, depending on how you looked at it – for Q. He pushed his glass into Moneypenny’s hand and told them both that the best vodka he had ever had had been from a microbrewery outside of Moscow. He excused himself and made his way over to Q where the man was still staring at Q and Q was seemingly oblivious.

When he was closer he saw the man start to reach out his hand towards Q. He moved with the same speed he did while on mission and wrapped his arm around the shoulder of the man. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Bond mumbled lowly.

Q didn’t notice either of the men behind him and continued to speak rapidly about a new design that made his minion’s eyes go wide with wonder.

Bond led the man into the hallway and found a small niche where he could speak freely. “If you ever look at Q like that again I will personally make sure you can never look at anyone again. Am I clear?” Bond asked in an almost growl.

“You think you’re scary? The big bad Double-O?” The man made a dismissive sound and turned his back to walk away. He swayed on his feet slightly and was a little tipsy, but that didn’t stop Bond’s blood from boiling when he next opened his mouth. “Maybe I’ll go fuck the little slut. Nothing you can do about it.”

Bond decided that there was defiantly something that he could do about it. He grabbed the younger man’s arm and twisted it so that it was painfully behind his back and his face was pressed against the cold stonewall. “First of all, Q is the Quartermaster of MI6 and could destroy your life it he so chose. He doesn’t because you don’t even exist on his radar, which I would change very easily. Do I make myself clear?”

The man nodded franticly. Bond knew that from the pressure that he was holding on the man’s arm there would be small fractions down the whole bone.

“Q deserves only your upmost respect and you will give that respect to him, understood?” Bond growled in his ear.

“Yes,” the man said stiffly.

“Good.” Bond released the man who stepped away from the wall immediately and cradled his arm. “Now out of my sight.”

The man went back to the party, but Bond waited for a minute before he walked back in. Q gave him a pointed look that might have been scolding if Bond cared.

**January 15th, 2014**

Q poured himself another glass of wine and sighed. He tried not to look at the whole bottle that he had almost emptied. It was edging towards midnight. He had gotten home only an hour earlier after R kicked him out of Q-Branch claiming that he wasn't going to find Bond when he was running off fumes. Q had protested, and R had assured him that Bond would show up.

He tried to calm his racing thoughts of all the things that he could still try. He still had options and resources to find Bond that he had yet to exhaust. In the living room the elevator dinged. Q set down his glass and grabbed the gun that he had stored in the kitchen drawer. Silently, he moved into the living room and aimed the gun at the open elevator door.

Bond walked through the door and Q let out a sigh. The agent watched carefully as Q set the gun down on the table next to him. He stayed completely still as Q stomped towards him. For a split second he thought that Q was going to hit him and he was right. Q swung his arm back, defiantly slow enough that Bond could have stopped him, and punched the agent in the jaw.

Bond's head snapped to the side and his cheek started bleeding. "Okay, I deserved that." When he looked back at Q he expected him to be glaring at him, but instead Q threw his arms around Bond's neck and buried his face in the agent's neck.

"I was so worried about you," Q whispered.

Bond slowly set down his bag and wrapped his arms around Q's waist. He wasn't really sure how he was supposed to respond. The last time he had “died” and the only person who cared about him just asked if they had run of drink where he was. He wasn't sure how to respond to Q caring enough to worry (and not sleep by the circles under his eyes). He stayed silent for a while and just held onto Q.

After a while of just standing there Q pulled back and seemed to compose himself. “Next time you die I would prefer that you call and tell me you’re alive. It would both save us time,” Q said in a suddenly professional voice.

“I think I preferred it when you were hugging,” Bond grumbled mostly to himself.

Q froze for a moment. “You tell anyone about that and I will send you on you’re next mission with only a water pistol, which I’m already tempted to do after this.” Q turned around and started walking back to the kitchen.

“Can I tell Alec?” Bond asked with a smirk. He left his bags where they were sitting and followed the younger man.

“No,” Q answered sharply.

Bond’s grin widened. “Miss Moneypenny?”

“No.”

“What about your brother?”

“Most defiantly not.” Q turned around quickly and almost ran into Bond. Q teetered for a second like he might fall. Bond grabbed onto his shoulders and steadied him. They stared at each other for a long moment and Q would forever blame it on the wine that he thought that Bond looked very kissable in that moment.

“You should go to bed,” Bond said gently.

Q smiled gently and patted Bond’s chest. “Right. Goodnight, James.”

When Q left Bond was left to think about the fact that Q had just called him James for the first time since the beginning of their cohabitation. It also left him thinking about the fact that hearing Q call him James had made his stomach flip.

**January 27th, 2014**

Bond was in his room working out when Q walked in without knocking. “How good are you at keeping secrets?” he asked without giving the agent a greeting.

“It’s my job to keep secrets,” Bond said with a smirk.

“No, your job is to find secrets and tell the to the right people. How good are you at keeping secrets?” Q said firmly.

Bond paused and considered the man in front of him. “What are you about to tell me, Q?”

“Nothing if you don’t answer my God damn question,” Q snapped.

“Who do you want me to keep the secret from?” Bond asked slowly.

“Everyone.”

“For how long?”

“Always.”

Bond watched Q, who watched him in turn. “What is it?”

“I have two tracking devices on me. One is in my glasses and the other is in my arm. If the glasses are broken a signal is sent to MI6. There is only one other way to access the signal; to have the password. I want to give you that password.”

“Why not give it to MI6?”

“In case I go rogue?”

“Yet you want me to have it. Why?”

“You’re going to want to hear that I want you to be the one to put a bullet in my brain.”

Bond had to work not to flinch at the idea of killing Q.

“But I quite like my brain when it lacks bullets. The reason I want you to have the password is because if I go rogue there are only two places you might be: dead, hence my going rogue, or right by my side.”

Bond narrowed his yes. “You think that I’d go rogue with you?”

“Don’t sound so insulted. I’d only go off the map if a) you died and it was out fault or we did it on purpose or b) the only way to continue actually protecting Queen and County was to leave MI6.”

Bond considered Q for a long moment.

“Do you still want the password?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a contact in your phone named ‘Simion.’ When you click on it, it will open an app hidden deep in your system. You get one chance to ender the password before everything on your phone is saved to a cloud and a picture of whoever is holding the phone. The picture is sent to my phone as an emergency.” Q pulled a sticky note out of his pocket. “Memorize that then burn it.” The note said ‘1AKT6dyem9alege8’.

“Could you design the same thing for me?”

“You would have to swear that you won’t cut it would of yourself.”

Bond nodded.

“Design your password and give it to me ASAP.”

“I’ll just use yours.”

Q smiled tightly. “Mine’s very personal.”

“It’s just random letters and numbers.”

“You obviously haven’t been paying much attention.”

**January 29th, 2014**

Bond walked into the living room from his bedroom with a slip of paper and butterflies in his stomach. Q was sitting on the couch tablet in hand with his feet curled under him looking as comfy as ever.

“I finished my password,” Bond said as he sat down next to Q on the couch.

Q extended his hand for the paper and Bond handed it to him without a word. Q glanced down at the slip of paper that had “2BMV0rsmL0aeitMt6” written in tight script, so unlike Bond’s usual scrawl.

“Thank you. I have the tracker in the other room.” Q stood up, tucking the tablet under his arm and the scrap of paper into his pants pockets. Bond followed.

In the other room Q started digging through a drawer. “Are you sure about this? You’re being quiet.”  
Bond stayed quiet for another minute and Q pretended to still be looking for the case that he had already found.

“It’s been almost eight years since she left and she’s still there, in my mind.” Bond’s voice was quiet and almost far away.

“Vesper?” Q asked gently, pulling the case out and setting it on the desk.

“Yeah. I didn’t even know her and she still cut deep enough that her name is right there next to yours in that password.” Bond held out his arm for Q as the quartermaster prepared a gun to shoot the tracker under Bond’s skin.

“It’s not wrong for you to feel that way. You trusted her, after all,” Q said, packing the fact that his name was in the password away to examine later.

“But I shouldn’t have. I fell for her so hard and so fast… I just wanted to love someone, any one. I wanted to feel like an actual person. I had just been promoted to Double-0 and I wasn’t human anymore…,” Bond was cut off when Q turned around quickly and grabbed his face between his hands.

“Don’t you dare say you aren’t human,” Q said with a ferocity that Bond had never seen before. “Don’t even think it. You are. You do your job and it’s tough and it’s awful and I know you hate it, but that’s the point. You _hate_ doing what you have to do and a monster would find pleasure in it. Someone who wasn’t human wouldn’t come back to me after every mission and listen to jazz music while trying to make his way through my book collection. Someone who wasn’t human wouldn’t be fighting so hard. They wouldn’t remember my nieces and nephews birthdays. They wouldn’t be you because you. Are. Not. A. Monster.”

Silence filled the room and Q’s words hung between them, leaving Bond’s mind spinning. After what was probably too long to be acceptable Q released Bond and settled the tracker gun against his arm and shot the small piece of metal into his arm.

“You fell in love and that wasn’t wrong, You did what you could and I’m here to help you with the rest now,” Q added quietly in an almost whisper with his back to Bond as he pretended to be busy with the things on his desk.

He waited for the sound of Bond leaving the room but it didn’t come, only the feeling of two strong arms wrapping around his waist and a face burying itself in his neck. “Thank you, Q.”

**February 5th, 2014**

Q was sitting in his office at home working on a new prototype for a tracker that could be put in the Double-0s and the field agents who had a particularly hard time checking in. It wouldn’t give off any signals, but acted as a receiver until it got the signal from Q-Branch to start transmitting a signal to them. It would be virtually undetectable and would be inserted between the shoulder blades of the agent so that they couldn’t cut it out without considerable effort. With any luck it would save Q-Branch a lot of trouble in the long run.

Q had locked himself in his office as soon as he got home and had been there for almost three hours, not that he had noticed in the slightest. Bond chose that moment to burst into the room and make Q jump.

“What part of dangerous explosives didn’t you understand?” Q asked. Bond ignored him. He just rushed forward and threw his arms around Q with a book ending up right in Q’s face and Bond hitting it repeatedly. Q didn’t even try to read it. He probably wouldn’t have been able to even if he tried. He was a little distracted. The back of his head was pressed against Bond’s chest and both of his muscular arms were on either side of his head in something that could have been a hug if things were different.

“Are you listening to me, Q?” Bond asked eventually. Apparently he had been rambling on while Q tried to figure out what was going on.

“I can’t read it if you keep hitting it,” Q said impatiently, taking the book out of Bond’s hands. Bond let him take the book and backed off a few steps. The book was an old spy book that Matt had given to Q as a joke a few Christmases back. The paragraph that Bond had been pointing at was describing tech the spy was being given, which happened to be an invisible car.

Q spun around and looked at Bond who was grinning madly. “Bond, you can’t even keep track of the visible cars I give you. Why would I give you an invisible one?” Q asked.

Bond fixed Q with a look that Q got the feeling was supposed to be seductive. “Because I’m your favorite.”

“No, 003 is my favorite. He brings back all of the equipment that I send him out with and he’s not an arrogant arse,” Q countered.

“He’s not as pretty as I am,” Bond said with a slight smirk.

Q suppressed a small grin and nodded. “He’s not as pretty as you, but he’s also not as petty.”

“If I’m petty then you must be unbearable,” Bond countered.

“And yet here you are.”

“Free rent, how could I resist?”

“Oh don’t pretend that you don’t stay here so that you can try and catch a glimpse of me naked,” Q said with a grin.

Bond smiled back like he knew something Q didn’t. “You’ve caught me,” Bond said, stepping close to Q so that their faces were only inches apart. “Now what are you going to do with me?”

All of the air in the world seemed to have been vacuumed out for those few moments as Bond and Q stared at each other. With a start Q and Bond both seemed to realize how close they were and what they were doing and snap out of it. Bond started to laugh and Q pushed his chest. They both ignored the heated blush that was burning across Q’s face before Bond left the office.

**April 13th, 2014**

As always after a mission Bond went to Mallory’s office to debrief. He was welcomed by Moneypeny who didn’t look like she had gotten a moment of sleep for days; there were dark rings under her eyes, her hair was falling out of the ponytail that she had it tied back in. But that was sometimes the life they lived so he figured he’d just ask when he left. She directed him into Mallory’s office where he spent an hour. At the end, as Bond was leaving Mallory stopped him. “I should give you a heads up. The Quartermaster is in Medical.”

Bond turned around to face Mallory. “Excuse me, what did you say?” Bond clenched and unclenched his fists at his side.

“I know that you and the Quartermaster are close. I thought you’d appreciate knowing that he’s in Medical.” Mallory spoke calmly even with the agent likely to hit him.

“What happened?” Bond asked in a strained voice.

“He was captured, has since been found, and is currently being held in Medical.”

“Q was missing and no one called me?” Bond glared at M.

“He was only missing for 36 hours. Everything was under control,” Mallory countered.

“I could have found him in _twenty minutes_ ,” Bond protested.

“How?”

Bond stared blankly at Mallory.

“Tell. Me.”

Bond narrowed his eyes at Mallory. “I could have found him. So the next time Q goes missing _call me_!” Bond turned and stopped out of the room.

Moneypenny opened her mouth to speak, but Bond snapped at her. “Don’t talk to me. You let me sit in there for an hour while Q was in Medical.” He stomped out of the room in a rush and not so much pressed, as attacked the down button on the elevator.

When he got to Medical he found a nurse who directed him to Q’s room without causing as much fuss as he had expected. Bond realized he probably looked a little like he would kick the ass of the next person to slow him down. He walked into Q’s room to find him with a breathing machine and with wires and tubes connecting him to even more machines. He wasn’t conscious and he looked tiny in the bed.

A doctor came in a moment later. “007,” he greeted.

“What happened?” Bond asked urgently.

“It looks like he has suffered damage to his lungs and possibly his brain, but he’s stable.”

“His brain?”

“The MRI didn’t show any damage, but we can’t be sure until he wakes up.”

“But he’ll live?” Bond asked with more worry than he would have liked to admit.

The doctor smiled and nodded. “He’ll be fine.”

“When will he wake up?”

“We don’t know for sure. Could be a minute, could be a week, could be a year. We don’t know. He lost consciousness almost as soon as he got here. He hasn’t woken since.”

Bond nodded, turned on his heal, and left MI6.

An hour later Bond came back with Q’s home tablet, a change of cloths for the Quartermaster, and a book.

Bond had only been sitting by Q’s side for three hours before Q slowly woke up. Before Bond had even noticed that his eyes were open three doctors and a crowd of nurses rushed in. Bond stood up and put his back to the wall as they all checked on Q. After twenty minutes they left and Q was sitting up looking at Bond.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“A few hours.” Bond shrugged. “I brought you your tablet and a change of cloths.”

Q gave him a tired smile. “Thank you.” He extended his hand expectantly towards Bond. Bond placed the tablet in his hand and sat down next to Q’s bed again.

They sat in silence for hours until Q drifted off to sleep yet again and Bond took the tablet out of his lap. He put it on the table in font of Q so that if he woke up he could reach it. Then he settled himself further in to the chair and fell asleep.

April 20th, 2014

Q was laying on his back on the couch staring at the ceiling. There was jazz music playing quietly in the background, just like there always was when Bond was reading in the living room. He was playing along to the piano in the song on his stomach. Bond had taken his computer, tablet, and even his phone. He claimed it was on doctor’s orders, but Q heavily suspected that it was just Bond worrying over him.

Suddenly he turned his head to Bond who looked up at him with an unreadable expression. “Do you know how to dance to this?” Q asked curiously.

“Yes,” Bond said without much inflection. “Do you?”

“My mum made us all take lessons in a million different things. Dancing was one of them,” Q explained. He turned back and faced the ceiling again.

Bond looked carefully at Q whose fingers kept perfect time with the music, causing a small smile pulled on the older man’s lips. He marked the page and stood up, crossed the room, and stood over Q, making the younger man look up at him curiously. Bond grabbed his hand and pulled him off the couch and into a standing position.

“I thought I was to rest? Doctor’s orders.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.” Bond winked at Q, who stood up and helped Bond moved the couches and the coffee table out of the way.

“You’re an awful nurse,” Q said when they stood in the middle of the room holding hands and starting to find the beat of the song.

“Hardly concerned,” Bond said with another wink. Q found the beat of the song first and pulled Bond into moving. Bond pulled him and twisted him into spinning into his chest. Q laughed loudly and spun out of Bond’s grasp with the music. Bond chased after him, putting his hands on Q’s hips that the younger man shook with the rhythm of the song.

He grabbed Bond’s hand and turned around, twisting Bond and turning him in a circle. Bond stopped himself and grabbed Q’s hands again, a wide, genuine, grin playing on his face. He spun Q around again and caught him when he started coughing.

“I think sitting would be a good thing right about now,” Q said with a weak smile to Bond, who only gave him a worried look.

“I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to do. You need to rest,” Bond said. He helped Q back to the couch, even if Q needed no such help.

“It’s not your fault. I agreed to dance. It’s just as much my fault as yours,” Q said with a smile. He sat back down on the couch and sat back to listen to the music.

Bond sat next to him, close enough that they were almost touching. Q coughed once more before laying his head on Bond’s shoulder. Q felt Bond go stiff and he sat up. “Do you mind?”

Bond gave him a small smile before slipping an arm around his shoulders. Q smiled and laid his head back down on his shoulder. One of Q’s hands started playing along with the song again and Bond felt the urge to grab his hand and whisper for Q to go to sleep. He didn’t, though. He just watched Q’s long fingers play along as if he were the one playing the piano

**August 4th, 2014**

It was Bond’s turn to buy groceries, though to be fair anytime he was in London was his turn to do the shopping. Q said that it was to make up for all the times he couldn’t while he was on mission. Bond thought that it was just Q’s way of telling him that he was glad he was back.

His phone stated to ring while he was in the middle of Tesco. He moved the basket of food onto his other arm as he fished the phone out of his pocket, expecting it to be Q requesting at least three more boxes of power bars. The number, however, was blocked.

“Hello?” Bond asked cautiously.

“Hello, Mr. Bond,” a smooth male voice said in a low tone.

“Who is this?” Bond asked accusingly. He glanced around the store to see if it was anyone that was watching him, but there was no one in sight, let alone watching him and on the phone.

“My name is not what’s important,” the mystery man replied smoothly.

“Really? I think it is,” Bond answered just as smoothly.

“What’s important is how your precious flatmate is fairing.”

Bond almost growled into the phone. “If you lay a finger on…”

The man cut him off with a barking laugh. “It’s not was we are going to do, it’s what we’ve already done.”

Bond dropped the basket of food on the ground and sprinted out of the store. He pushed past people on the street as he ran with every last bit of energy that he had. He ran past the doorman of their building and hit the elevator button repeatedly until the doors opened. He scanned the authorization card. The elevator started the trip up all too slowly for Bond. He bounced on the balls of his feet with anxious energy.

When the doors opened he ran into the living room, but couldn’t see Q. Bond ran into the kitchen yelling Q’s name, but Q wasn’t there either. He ran to Q’s office still screaming, but it was empty as well. He felt his panic multiply in his chest as he continued to search.

A door opened behind him and Q came out of his bedroom with nothing but a pair of pajama pants on and a towel draped over his neck soaking up the water droplets that fell from his hair.

“Bond, what are you doing?” Q asked. Bond stared at him blankly for a moment. Relief flooded his system and he didn’t think though what he did next. He rushed towards Q, grabbed the sides of Q’s face and kissed him.

Q froze. Bond moved away and started running his hands down Q’s arms, as if to confirm that he was actually there. “Thank God you’re okay,” he sighed. He snapped back into agent mode and looked at Q seriously. “We need to get you to MI6, where you’ll be safe.”

“Safe?” Q asked.

“I’ll explain on the way, grab your coat.”

True to his word Bond did explain on the way to MI6. Q nodded slowly, showing a brave face, even as his hands started to shake. “I had a headache. I was going to lie down after a shower…Oh my God, I wasn’t going to wake up from that.”

Bond reached across the small space of the car and rested a hand on Q’s. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

When they arrived at MI6 they rushed to Medical. They ran every test imaginable, but soon stopped after they found cyanide in Q’s system. They started treating him immediately and tested Bond as well, who had traces, but nothing serious.

12 hours later they were sent to a hotel to sleep while their flat was torn apart and investigated. On the way there Q spoke up.

“You kissed me and thanked god, who you don’t believe in, that I was okay.” It was a statement, but Bond had lived with Q long enough to know that it was more of an invitation for an explanation.

“It wouldn’t be the first time we opted to forget something.” Bond didn’t take his eyes off the road as he spoke, not that he could have brought himself to look at Q. He had watched Q though the entire time in Medical and the only answer he had gotten for his actions was that he really did care for the scrawny man in front of him. As soon as he decided that, however, he also decided that he couldn’t bring himself to look Q in the eye anymore. He was afraid that if he looked at the hazel eyes he might just tell Q and that would be the most disastrous thing to have happened to them since he had looked up Kyle’s files.

Bond saw falling for his best friend and flatmate as a huge betrayal and there was no way that Q wouldn’t agree. Bond would not hurt Q and sacrifice his friendship, which was already delicate in it’s own right, just so that he would confess some feelings.

Bond had decided in the depths of MI6 that he was in love with his best friend, flatmate, and Quartermaster. He decided that he wouldn’t risk any of those relationships, he just wasn’t sure how to look Q in the eye without blurting out a poorly worded declaration of love. So he didn’t he started at the road and tried to ignore the almost silent mumbling of Q: “Right… okay.”

**August 14th, 2014**

“Bond get out of there right now!” Q practically shouted into the mic.

“I’m working on that,” Bond said tensely.

“Well work faster,” Q snapped. “Left.”

“I don’t need to work faster. I need a way out.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Well work faster,” Bond countered.

Q almost laughed. “Don’t get smart with me.”

“Then get me out of here.”

**August 15th, 2014**

It was well past midnight and most of Q-Branch had been deserted. The was a skeleton crew and one person running a junior field agent though their mission were the only ones left in the main room of Q-Branch. Q was hidden away in his office slowly dealing with the paperwork that had been dumped on his desk to help resolve some more extreme measures that were taken in order to get Bond on a flight back to London.

It was nothing that would cause an international incident, but he could already hear his sister’s voice in his head, yelling at him for acting so foolishly. He might also get a gift basket from Courtney, his sister in law, for fucking up and probably getting MI5 some of MI6’s budget.

There was jazz playing the background to help him focus, he had gotten quite used to it while living with Bond. He took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. He should have been done with the paperwork hours ago, but his head was still swimming. When Bond had been in danger, real intimate danger Q had panicked and he hadn’t stopped yet.

There was something about Bond and the way that he smirked at Q that had drove him crazy when they had first met and now making the corner of Bond’s mouth curl up was Q’s whole world. He had seen Bond laugh freely and he thought it was one of the most beautiful things in the world - even when he snorted and then promptly denied ever doing such a thing. He wanted to keep Bond safe at all costs, even more so than for the other agents who were in his charge.

There wasn’t a thrill down his spin when he came home to Bond sitting on his couch. There was only a deep-set comfort and calm that went through him when he saw Bond with yet another one of his books. There was a warmth to Bond that no one else got to see and that made Q smile just a little bit.

At the same time as he felt the happiness and warmth that Bond gave them Q also felt a shot of fear. He hadn’t felt this way about anyone since Kyle died and Bond had the same job that he had had. Bond was likely to die and Q would be alone with the cold emptiness that had filled him when Kyle had died. He had promised himself that he would never fall for another field agent and then he had gone and done exactly the opposite.

There was a need somewhere inside Q that told him that he had to talk to Bond. He had to tell him and get it off his chest so that they could move on. _Yes,_ Q thought, _if I can get it out in the open it can go away._ That of course meant that he actually had to figure out something to say to the agent.

Q cursed quietly under his breath, grabbed his glasses, and got up to make himself another cup of tea. He had more paperwork to do and Bond wouldn’t be back for a few more hours.

Q didn’t go home until the end of work the next day. He found Bond sitting on the couch and nodded to him. Bond flashed him a tight smile that almost made Q stop on the way to his room. He had been so distracted at work that he hadn’t had time to figure out what he was going to say to Bond.

An hour later he went back into the living room. Bond was still sitting with the cat reading Les Misérables on the couch. Q took a deep breath to steel himself before he sat down on the coffee table directly in front of the agent.

“Bond.” He spoke firmly knowing full and well that Bond was probably about to laugh him out of the room.

“Yes, Q,” Bond said calmly with a hint of confusion in his voice.

“I need you to pay attention because I’m only going to say this once,” Q said just as firmly as before despite his crumbling resolve.

Bond closed the book and nodded. “Okay. I’m paying attention.”

Q took a deep breath. “I’m not in the business of lying to myself, or to the people that I care about. Not about personal matters, hence the reason I’m talking to you. Over the past two years of our cohabitation I have grown quite fond of you. I have very strong feelings of affection for you.” Bond arched an eyebrow and Q took a breath to steady himself, determined to get what he had to say out. “However, you may rest at ease knowing that none of these feelings will be acted upon. I have a rule.” Q spoke professionally and Bond had the distinct feeling that he had prewritten and rehearsed the rant. It was my far the strangest confession that Bond had ever received, but that didn’t stop him from responding in kind.

“I’m always up for a little rule breaking.” He gave Q a brilliant smile that Q didn’t return. Instead his eyebrows knit together and he blinked a few times before answering.

“I know you are. But rules are what keep my life whole. Without them I would have lost my job after Kyle died, that or became a serial killer, or taken over the world.”

Bond laughed. “Those were your choices?”

“That or limit myself to only thinking about him an hour a day. A rule I have already broken during my deliberation of this. Of course rationalized by the fact that it was necessary in order to sort all of this out.”

Bond stared at the younger man who looked just a little bit frantic. He had been speaking quickly, running his words together and it was starting to worry him. “Q, what’s your rule?” Bond asked.

“I won’t date another field agent. You know what happened to Kyle and I won’t let it happen again.” Q closed his eyes and tried to sort out his thoughts that were bouncing everywhere inside his brain except where he needed the thought to be. He opened his eyes again and looked straight into Bond’s icy blue eyes. “You would have to retire, and I’m not about to ask you to do that. Being an agent is part of who you are. It probably helps you deal with your hero complex the size of Russia.”

“I don’t have a hero complex the size of Russia,” Bond protested.

Q gave Bond a disbelieving look. “Yes, you do.”

Bond smirked slightly as the mood lightened. “If you say so. But I don’t think that it’ll be a problem.”

“You will not retire for me. Being an agent is a part of who you are. You are Agent 007 to your very core, and I will not let you give that up for me.”

“Q…” Bond tired, but was cut off.

“I just wanted to get that off my chest,” Q nodded sharply and stood up.

Bond grabbed his hand gently and smiled softly when Q looked down at him in confusion. He tugged Q’s arm down gently. Q gave him a stern look but sat down on Bond’s lap just like he was silently requesting. Immediately Bond wrapped his arms around Q’s waist and pulled Q tightly against his chest.

“You don’t have to worry about me being an active agent anymore. I got fired this afternoon.”

Q twisted to look at Bond. “What?”

“I’m too old to play the game,” Bond said softly.

Q gave Bond an almost sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”

Bond shook his head. “Don’t be. I’m not.” He kissed Q’s shoulder.

“What are you going to do?” Q asked, running his fingers through Bond’s short hair.

“I think I’d make a pretty decent housewife,” Bond said with a grin. When Q just rolled his eyes Bond added, “It’s not like I would have to get a job. Double-Os get paid very well and I’ve never really had a reason to spend my money before.”

Q smiled at Bond and rested his head on Bond’s shoulder. Bond ran his hand up and down Q’s side. “If you’re my boyfriend you have to go to MI6 parties with me.”

“Do I get to kiss you under the mistletoe and at midnight?” Bond asked with a sly smile.

“When appropriate, and that doesn’t count with Thomas from Accounting’s eyes linger just a little too long,” Q said with a pointed look.

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“You nearly broke his arm!”

“Nearly being the key word.”

Q shook his head and mumbled something about Bond being impossible.

**August 29th, 2014**

Two weeks later Q stood behind Bond while he adjusted his bespoke suit. “You look fine,” Q said, grabbing Bond’s nervous hands. He wouldn’t show it in anything other than the small quirks, the constant adjusting of the suit, the compulsive checking for his wallet and phone. If it weren’t so sad Q might have thought it cute.

Bond turned around and hugged Q and kissed his mop of hair. “I know I do.” He left his nose buried in Q’s nose and held him there. “You didn’t go into the office today.”

“Wonderful observation, Mr. Bond,” Q quipped with a grin. He stepped back, kissed Bond on the cheek, and let out a long breath. “Are you ready?”

Bond looked at him with soft eyes that Q could only describe as loving. He nodded and led them out of the room and flat. Bond drove them to the office. Q watched as Bond took on an air of confidence as he entered the building for the last time. “I have to go to Q-Branch. Come see me when you’re finished.” Bond nodded and they parted ways. He looked at the elevator and pressed the button. Time seemed to slow down as he waited. Finally the doors opened and revealed an empty elevator. He stepped inside and rode up to the executive level.

There was no one in the halls on the way to Mallory’s office and Moneypenny sat alone in her office waiting for him. “Thought there’d be more of a crowd. Double-Os don’t retire often,” he mentioned casually.

“You’re not nearly as special as you like to think that you are,” she said with a small smirk. “They’re waiting for you.”

“I’m every bit as special and then some. Just ask Q,” Bond said with a wink. He stepped towards the door and opened it to see Mallory, Tanner, and R all standing behind Mallory’s desk.

Bond tried to resist the slight irritation that he felt when he realized that Q had chosen not to see him off. He shook off the feeling and looked at Mallory and Tanner. R checked in the last of the equipment that he had – Q had taken a few things from Q-Branch so they still each had a gun. He signed a number of papers that Tanner handed to him, explaining them in the simplest terms possible: “this one allows us to call you if we really need you. We won’t of course. I don’t really need Q as my enemy,” or “this one takes away your license to kill. You are officially the problem of the police.”

Mallory assured him that he would always be welcome back in the building as long as he called first so that they could give clearance to his credentials. “Consulting is defiantly an option, if you want it. But legally you’re a civilian, so, for once, please get clearance before you do something incredibly stupid.”

They dismissed him with smiles and a “Good luck, Commander Bond.”

Bond nodded and left the room. Moneypenny wasn’t at her desk anymore, but there was a note that had his name on it sitting on the desk. He opened it and found a note with an address scribbled in her crowded handwriting. He rolled his eyes and sent a quick text telling Q that he was meeting Moneypenny and then he would be home.

He got a one letter confirmation from Q faster than he had expected before he left the MI6 office. He plugged the address into the GPS on his phone and foiudn that it was only a few blocks over and decided to walk.

Ten minutes later he was standing in front of a small bar. He looked through the large windows and saw that the place was mostly full despite the fact that it was only just five. He brushed it off and went inside.

The people inside shouted “SURPRISE,” when he walked in and smiled brightly at him. There was a banner across the back wall that read, “IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME,” and music was playing in the background.

Most everyone in the bar turned back to their own conversations after he smiled and nodded to them all.

Moneypenny demanded a hug and told him that she still expected him to keep in contact, agent or not. Tanner and Mallory had beaten him to the bar and were standing next to Q.

“This is why you had R discharge me?” Bond asked after he had finished with the pleasantries.

“Someone had to make sure that the minions didn’t go overboard with the fireworks.” Q smiled at him and suddenly the somber feeling that had settled in his bones at the beginning of the day left.  
*  
The party stretched on for hours, Q and Bond not getting back to their flat until well after midnight. Q crawled into bed next to Bond and gave him a chaste kiss. Bond smiled at him and mumbled a goodnight. Q watched Bond roll over and slide his hand under his pillow where he had placed his gun. Q’s face fell and he stared thinking about what the hell he had just gotten himself into.

Sure, Bond was a retired agent, but he still had enemies who wanted him buried six feet under. Plus, how long could Q honestly expect James Bond to be retired and live a normal domestic life? He was used to getting shot at least once a month, he couldn’t live like a normal person, it just wasn’t going to happen. Bond was bound to get into trouble and Q might still lose him just like he lost Kyle.

_He’s not the same as Kyle. Bond’s more ruthless than Kyle. He wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger like Kyle._

The thought wasn’t as comforting as he wanted it to be. It reminded him that he was laying in bed with a ruthless killer. Someone who had killed so many that he didn’t bother to keep count anymore. And yet Q was normal. Q gave orders for deaths, sure, but Q had never killed a someone with his bare hands, not like Bond had.

There was no way for it to work out. It wouldn’t end well. There would be screaming and fighting and crying and Bond would leave.

He would leave and he would get in to trouble and he’d be out of practice, and one of his enemies would finally find him. And then he’d be dead and Q would be left to identify yet another body of a man he loved.

Q sat up suddenly in bed and grabbed his laptop from next to the bed. Bond rolled over and started through the darkness at Q. “Everything okay?” he mumbled through his sleep slurred voice.

“Yeah, go back to sleep,” Q said distractedly, waving his hand at Bond. He typed in his password for the computer and started to create a person. He made an informant with ties to three government agencies and a history of treason, though he had never been apprehended. He created a false identity for this person complete with school records and warrants for arrest. He crossed thee pictures of dead John Does for his identification pictures.

After Q was finished creating the criminal he went into all of Bond’s records and changed himself to the next of kin. He declared Bond dead and sent an email explaining to Tanner and Mallory that they needed to have another funeral for Bond.

He found different alcoves of the Internet of slightly less legal jobs and found all of them that were pertaining to Bond. He sent messages to all of them asking for information on them and prepared to trade the information that Bond was dead. Q went for hours and hours on end in the light of the computer without a second thought. He was completely lost to the world until he finished.

He looked up at the time in the corner of the computer and sighed. It was nearly five in the morning and he needed to get up in only an hour. He looked over at Bond’s sleeping body next to him. He was laying flat on his stomach fast asleep with one hand under his pillow, undoubtedly holding his gun, and the other outstretched towards Q. A small smile played on Q’s lips as he watched the bare scared back move up and down with every breath.

Normally if he worked that long he would just get up and make himself a cup of tea and start pumping caffeine into his system. But there was something that was so inviting about the sleeping retired agent that Q couldn’t explain. He shut down his computer and put it back on the shelf where it sat. He laid down and moved Bond’s arm to drape over him while he curled against his side.

Bond woke with a start and stared at Q. “Sh, it’s just me. Go back to sleep.” Bond hummed and pulled Q closer to him, wrapping both arms around him.

Q slipped into unconsciousness in seconds, but not without a smile on his face and the fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe, it would work out.

**Author's Note:**

> OH MY GOD! It's done. It's finished. This fic was supposed to be a drabble you guys. It was supposed to be like tops a thousand or two words but then...I don't even know what happened. My brain was just like but what if we did more! Anyway, sorry it's so long and sorry again for the flood of fics.


End file.
